Learning Resources

picoCTF is far more than a competition. Learn and explore the cybersecurity world here.

picoGym Playlists

Playlists are collections of challenges, sometimes with readings or games, that are curated to help players learn a particular topic.

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The Beginner's Guide to the picoGym

Experience our most approachable problems in this playlist that touches on every challenge category but focuses on General Skills.

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Cryptography and picoGym Learning Intro

Play the PicoLock puzzle game and be inspired to tackle some Cryptography challenges in Caesar Ciphers, RSA and side-channel attacks. Get exposure to our whole range of challenges, from the simplest to some of the most complex.
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Low Level Binary Intro

In this playlist, we present Mochi’s Tale, a videogame that will whet your appetite for the low level code challenges presented in this playlist. We’ll introduce assembly, debuggers and some Python code that can be exploited in similar ways as assembly code.

Online Lecture Series

Watch our monthly YouTube lecture series on intro cybersecurity principles.

Challenge Video Tutorials

The video tutorials provide detailed explanations about challenges presented in our past competitions. After watching these tutorials, you will know how to approach and solve every challenge in the previous competitions.

Learning Guides

These learning guides provide basic background information about Cybersecurity. For novice and cyber security enthusiasts alike, these guides can help you get prepared to solve challenge problems:

General Skills Cryptography Web Exploitation Forensics Binary Exploitation Reversing
Watch on YouTube

External Resources

Not satisfied with the resources above? Need to learn more? While the following resources are not affiliated with picoCTF, our problem and education developers find them very useful:

Gitbook from Trail of Bits

CTF Learn

Capture the Flag 101

Open Security Training2

CYBERPATRIOT The National Youth Cyber Education Program

Roppers Academy

Cisco Networking Academy

Khan Academy - Cybersecurity 101

NSA Codebreaker

US Cyber Games

Cybersecurity Guide

National Cyber League